Valediction
by Ovo
Summary: "Never follow a ghost into the night.  Especially one that calls you by name."  Shepard, Kaidan, and two weeks of leave after the Battle of the Citadel.


_Valediction_

**Separation Anxiety**

Two weeks.

Earth weeks, naturally.

Yes, her body needed the time to recuperate from all the punishment she had been putting it through. Two weeks was in excess - according to Dr. Chakwas, she would be mostly recovered within the week... one week maximum.

Then again, Shepard admitted she was being unfair. After spending a year chasing Saren and his geth, not to mention going up against Sovereign, her crew deserved the respite. In fact, _according to regulations_, they were accorded two months, and honestly they deserved it.

The commander simply didn't know what to do with that much free time.

"You should have everything you'll need, Commander," Emerson promised. Her gear, her omni-tool, her clothes, field rations; everything she needed, except something to occupy her mind past the first two days and keep her from going insane.

"Yeah," she replied, and caught herself, "I mean, yes; I do. Thank you."

Pressly was staring at her, uneasy at her drift. "Is something wrong, Commander?"

"Not really." Shepard shrugged her uninjured shoulder. Two weeks and they insisted on escorting her personally, rather than letting her jump a shuttle to destination unknown. _As if Joker **wasn't** going to be doing barrel rolls in the Normandy to his heart's content while everyone else was away_. "I'm sure it'll be fine."

"If you're having second thoughts," Pressly said, "There's no shortage of nice planets around. We'd be happy to-..."

"No, I'm fine," Shepard repeated, a little too hastily. The men glanced between themselves, and she tacked on what she hoped was an assuring, "_Really_."

"So... that's everything, right?" She had rather been hoping that Kaidan would see her off, or at least that they would find quiet minute to say goodbye. But she had lost track of him somewhere between throwing all her junk into a crate, and the flurry of marines trying to be helpful in getting her offloaded once they landed. There was no reason to draw this out any longer than it had to be.

Pressly didn't seem convinced, but neither did he push the issue. "Everything, ma'am."

"Right. See you," Shepard said, for lack of anything to say, other than _don't leave me_. It didn't matter; they were all going, and she hadn't any reason to stay on an empty ship. Curtly, she turned and trudged off, ignoring the aggravated twinge in her healing leg. Half the distance, she paused and turned back, waiting.

Sand stirred up under the effect of the _Normandy_'s takeoff field. From where she stood, Shepard could feel the slightest curve of gravity, _pulling_, until the ship lifted out of reach. Shepard watched it rise, shrink into a pinpoint of silver-gray, and finally vanish.

A rush of panic surged through her chest; her hands clenched into fists. The _Normandy_ was gone. It wouldn't be back for nearly two weeks. The sand moved underfoot as she shifted her weight. Overhead, Phoenix cast its bright, scorching light over the open desert. Shepard wasn't in armor; she wasn't in space, on a ship or a station; she wasn't on a mission. It felt _wrong_.

So much, then, for Anderson's _Spectre-Lite_ regiment; the notion that Shepard was fully adaptable to any situation, capable of being shuttled between assignments without a care in the galaxy, had just gone out the airlock.

Tearing her gaze from where her ship had vanished, Shepard finally turned to follow the trail of jumbled footsteps in the coarse sand to her front door. Momentarily distracted by the tough, yellow grass-like flora that grew in the shelter of the prefab housing unit, the woman shook her head.

_Off duty_. What a hellish concept, that was.

A blast of cool air washed over her as the door slid open and she stepped inside the climate-controlled building. Determined, having survived everything else her life had thrown at her, she could survive two weeks outside of the system and in adrenaline withdrawal... _right?_

A groan caught in her throat.

After struggling with and eventually managing to kick off her boots inside the outer door, Shepard padded towards the inner door, cursing the chill of the floor tile that seeped through her socks. Slipping between the door before it had finished sliding open, she stopped cold.

Two of the three supply crates had been unsealed, one empty and on its side, the other being emptied as she watched. Their contents were stacked in ordered piles, with Kaidan crouched in the midst of them, sorting everything out.

That, Shepard mused, explained where he'd gotten to while she was juggling personal and personnel. It didn't quite explain what he was doing now, though. At her approach, he stood, brushing his hands on his trouser legs.

"You missed the boat," she informed him, quiet surprise tinting her words.

"Boat?" After a cursory glance through the window at the vast desert, as if it had, perhaps, materialized a scenic ocean beachside, Kaidan quirked an eyebrow at her. "What boat?"

"The _Normandy_ took off." Shepard shrugged. In the back of her mind, a distant sense of understanding clicked; nevertheless, her voice grew flat when he didn't seem to comprehend her line of thought. "I figured you'd be on board."

To Shepard, the conversation may as well have been over - it was a misunderstanding. A testament to how worn out she was. Her rational thinking had caught up a moment too late, connecting the scattered pieces together; Kaidan had talked about leave, but never about his plans. In the chaotic aftermath of Sovereign's attack on the Citadel, when he didn't seem to include her, she packed for the only place in the Galaxy that was technically hers - Intai'sei - and banked on their picking things up where they left off once they were starside again.

Instead, he'd been waiting for _her_, and followed without question. Which she probably should have realized in the first place. It made her feel... well, she didn't know what she felt. And now he was standing there, staring at her with a guarded expression that all but demanded she own up to her stupidity. _Idiot, Shepard_.

"...why?"

"I don't know," she enunciated her words with an extraneous, exaggerated wave of her hand. "I thought you might have... you know, more important things to do with your time off."

"'More important things'?" Kaidan echoed, incredulously. "Care to tell me what could possibly be _more important_?"

"Hell if I know," Shepard groused, snatching a foil-wrapped field ration from the pile Kaidan had amassed on the table, tossing it on the bed, and started to pull her shirt over her head. "I thought you had family to visit; _something_."

"Look, Shepard," there was a hint of bitter laughter to his voice that had her scowling intuitively, "If you don't want me here..."

"I didn't say that." Elbows tangled up in her clothing, Shepard paused. At length she heaved a sigh and struggled to explain, "I wasn't expecting..." no, that wouldn't do, "I didn't want..." _definitely, not_.

If she had family, she assumed she would have visited them; it was the normal thing to do. She didn't know what else people did on vacations. Fun things, allegedly, but she wasn't of a mind to sift through her fuzzy thoughts for examples. Frustrated, she finished pulling off her shirt, undid her belt and sloughed her trousers; she draped the bundle of clothes over the back of the nearest chair.

"Look; forget it, okay?" she said, stalking across the room in her underclothes, "I'm tired and I'm not thinking straight."

_Tired_ was an underestimation. Settling on to the bed gingerly, Shepard stretched as comfortably as she could, favoring one side; within mere moments of her feet hitting the pillow, she had started to doze.

Uncertain, Kaidan approached the foot of the bed. As he leaned over her, dipping the mattress near her shoulder, Shepard took a deep, waking breath, rolling on her back; Kaidan dodged the hand that swung upward before she unwittingly swatted him in the nose, smiling as she blinked at him, bleary.

"Hey," he said softly.

"Hey," Shepard mumbled back. She squinted, trying to force her eyes to focus, but she was already drifting off again. Her fingers trailed down the back of his neck, settling on his shoulder, and he ducked in to press a feather-light kiss against her forehead.

"Sweet dreams."

"No promises." Her hand drifted down his arm; after a moment's hesitation, Kaidan squeezed it gently before he folded it across her chest. As an afterthought, he grabbed the yet unopened, forgotten field ration - Shepard was neither going eat it now, nor was she likely to starve without it.

Collecting Shepard's clothes from where she'd left them, Kaidan set them aside in a new pile, tossed the food packet back into the rations pile, and returned to squaring everything away.

Breaking the seal on the final crate, Kaidan found himself face to faceplate with Ashley's helmet, the cracked polymer still flecked with dried human blood. Lifting it reverently, he studied it for a lengthy few moments before, coming back to himself, he realized he didn't know where to put it; he didn't know what Shepard wanted done with it. The remaining contents of the crate were no help - it was all Shepard's gear.

At a loss, he put the helmet back and resealed the crate.

* * *

**A/N**: So. This is like... one of five bigger ME projects that came to mind since I got here (three if you don't count the wanting to novelize both ME and ME2). If I can think of ways to pad out two weeks of Kaidan and Shepard in addition to the two plot threads that will not take up nearly enough time, one of which I am not certain I want to include anyway. Or maybe I'll cut it down to one week. Or... something, I don't know.

I'm still shaky on Kaidan's characterization, and my Shepard is still in development (I thought I had her pinned down, but she keeps throwing curves at me *grumble*). Maybe this will be unrelated to the other ideas. Maybe I'll rewrite it entirely at some point, I don't know. Seeing as how this is a WIP, and I'm trying to get back into writing in general, I say this: Constructive criticism for where I went wrong? Suggestions for improvement? Suggestions in general? You better believe I'm taking them. Thanks for reading, folks!


End file.
